In 2004, the award-winning Uighur writer Nuremuhamet Yasin was sentenced to 10 years in a Chinese prison for writing a short story published in the Kashgar Literary Journal. His crime: “inciting Uighur separatism.” He is still imprisoned and allowed no visitors.

PEN Canada and other organizations working on his behalf have serious concerns about the health of this gifted poet and essayist.

The Chinese authorities have spent years painting the mostly Muslim Uighurs, who reside in the one of the most mineral-rich areas of the country, as traitors and terrorists. It seems unlikely that the planned demolition of the Old City of Kashgar, and the displacement of the Uighurs, is evidence of concern for the welfare of these people.

BEIJING (AFP) — Chinese police have smashed seven terror cells so far this year in the country's predominantly Muslim far-western region of Xinjiang, state media reported.

The China Daily said the cells were uncovered in Kashgar, China's westernmost city and a key centre of culture for Uighurs, the Muslim ethnic group that has long bridled under Chinese rule.

No further details about the cells were given by the newspaper, which attributed the information to Zhang Jian, the city's Communist Party chief.

But it quoted Zhang as saying the region faced an ongoing threat from terrorists who "remote control" local operatives from abroad via the Internet.

"Now the battle against terror has extended to the virtual world as the terrorists use the Internet as their tool to spread their radical ideas," he said.

China has long claimed it faces a deadly threat from Muslim separatists as justification for extremely tight controls in Xinjiang, a region of vast deserts and towering mountains that borders central Asia.

However, Uighur exile groups accuse Beijing of inflating the threat as an excuse to suppress their culture and ethnic identity.

Xinjiang is home to about eight million Uighurs, a Turkic ethnic group.

Zhang was quoted as saying Kashgar, an ancient Silk Road trading post, has seen 350 attacks resulting in the deaths of 60 government officials and civilians "since the 1990s."

In April, China executed two Uighur men in Kashgar for what it calls a "terrorist" attack last August in the city aimed at sabotaging the Olympics and that left 17 policemen dead, state media reported.

The incident was the most serious in a wave of unrest in Xinjiang ahead of and during the Beijing Olympic Games.

China arrested almost 1,300 people for terrorism, religious extremism or other state security charges in the region last year, state media reported in January.

URUMQI: The unrest in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, has led to the death of "a number of civilians and one armed police officer" on Sunday, sources with the regional government said early Monday.

Some ordinary people and armed police officers were also injured during the unrest, while many motor vehicles and shops were smashed and burned, the sources said.

The situation is under control now, it added.

Previous government report said that three ordinary people of the Han ethnic group were killed in the incident as of 11 pm Sunday, in addition to 20 others injured.

Initial investigation showed the unrest was masterminded by the World Uyghur Congress led by Rebiya Kadeer, according to the regional government.

"The unrest is a preempted, organized violent crime. It is instigated and directed from abroad, and carried out by outlaws in the country," a government statement said early Monday.

According to the government, the World Uyghur Congress has recently been instigating an unrest via the Internet among other means, calling on the outlaws "to be braver" and "to do something big."

Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang regional government, said in a televised speech Monday morning that the movement came after a conflict between Uygur and Han ethnic people in a toy factory in the southern Guangdong province on June 26.

Two Uygur workers were killed during the factory brawl, which was triggered by a sex assault by a Uygur worker toward a Han female worker. A totoal of 120 others of both Han and Uygur ethnic groups were injured.

Nur Bekri said the brawl was used by some overseas opposition forces to instigate Sunday's unrest and undermine the ethnic unity and social stability in the autonomous region, with an aim to split the country.

"We should bear in mind that stability is to the greatest interest of all people in China, including the people in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region," he said.

He blamed the "three forces" of terrorism, separatism and extremism for making use of the event to sabotage the country, adding that their attempts are doomed to fail.

Meanwhile, the Urumqi municipal government issued an urgent notice early Monday morning, announcing traffic control in certain areas to "maintain social order in the city and guarantee the execution of duty by state organs."

"From 1 a.m. to 8 a.m. on July 6, police impose traffic control in certain areas in the city of Urumqi. Passage in these areas is not allowed for any vehicle," the notice reads.

"All the units and individuals shall voluntarily help maintain social order as required by this notice. People who violate the notice will be detained and punished by police according to law. Those whose acts constitute a crime shall be subject to criminal liabilities according to law," says the notice.

So far the government has not disclosed how many people were involved in Sunday's unrest, only said they illegally gathered and protested in several downtown places at about 7 p.m. Sunday and engaged in beating, smashing, looting and burning.

The government has arrested some rioters, althouth the exact number of people arrested was still not available.

This year marks the region's 60th anniversary of peaceful liberation. But during the annual "two session" in March this year, Nur Bekri warned the security situation in the region would be "more severe".

"It's a time of celebration for Xinjiang people but hostile forces will not give up such an opportunity to sabotage," said the official.

The far western autonomous region is home to more than 10.96 million of ethnic minority people, including Uygur, Mongolian and Hui.

BEIJING - Chinese state media said that 140 people have been killed, more than 800 hurt, and hundreds arrested in violence in the country's western Xinjiang region.

The official Xinhua News Agency did not immediately give any other details today on the number of deaths. It earlier reported that four people had been killed in violence after nearly 1,000 protesters from a Muslim ethnic group, the Uighurs, rioted yesterday in the region's capital Urumqi, overturning barricades, attacking bystanders, and clashing with police.

Accounts differed over what happened yesterday, but the violence seemed to have started when a crowd of protesters - who started out peaceful - refused to disperse.

Adam Grode, an American Fulbright scholar studying in Urumqi, said he heard explosions and also saw a few people being carried off on stretchers.

He said he saw police pushing people back with tear gas, fire hoses, and batons, and protesters knocking over police barriers.

"Every time the police showed some force, the people would jump the barriers and get back on the street," said Grode, 26.

I thought that such a mass-violence would never happened in china today.

140 dead! that is beyond my imagination! how could this happen??

where were the policeman and troops, when people were killed ?

troops and policeman should not hesitate to shoot mobs, because iron fists are the only way what mob understands.

Click to expand...

Its really sad that so many people died in the incident,

badguy administrative machinery cannot always handle the population when their is a revolution in their mind, after all administrative machinery is evolved form such population, I don't know the exact nature for the cause and the intensity of the conflict but when their is full revolt in the mind and action of the citizen the government is paralyze to take any action.

By EDWARD WONG
BEIJING — The Chinese state news agency reported Monday that at least 140 people were killed and 816 injured when rioters clashed with the police in a regional capital in western China after days of rising tensions between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese.

The casualty toll, if confirmed, would make this the deadliest outbreak of violence in China in many years.

The rioting broke out Sunday afternoon in a large market area of Urumqi, the capital of the vast, restive desert region of Xinjiang, and lasted for several hours before riot police officers and paramilitary or military troops locked down the Uighur quarter of the city, according to witnesses and photographs of the riot.

At least 1,000 rioters took to the streets, throwing stones at the police and setting vehicles on fire. Plumes of smoke billowed into the sky, while police officers used fire hoses and batons to beat back rioters and detained Uighurs who appeared to be leading the protest, witnesses said.

The casualty numbers appeared to be murky and shifting on Monday. Xinhua, the state news agency, said the toll so far was 140 dead and 828 wounded, citing regional police officials. Earlier, Xinhua had reported that three civilians and one police officer were killed.

One regional official reached by telephone put the death toll at 105 and said at least 800 people had been injured. One American who watched the rioting at its height said he did not see people being killed or corpses in the streets, though he said he did see Uighurs shoving or kicking a few Han Chinese. Images of the rioting on state television showed some bloody people lying in the streets and cars burning.

Dozens of Uighur men were led into police stations on Sunday evening with their hands behind their backs and shirts pulled over their heads, one witness said. Early Monday, the local government announced a curfew banning all traffic in the city until 8 p.m.

The riot was the largest ethnic clash in China since the Tibetan uprising of March 2008, and perhaps the biggest protest in Xinjiang in years. Like the Tibetan unrest, it highlighted the deep-seated frustrations felt by some ethnic minorities in western China over the policies of the Communist Party, and how that can quickly turn into ethnic violence. Last year, in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, at least 19 people were killed, most of them Han civilians, according to government statistics.

Many Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim group, resent rule by the Han Chinese, and Chinese security forces have tried to keep oil-rich Xinjiang under tight control since the 1990s, when cities there were struck by waves of protests, riots and bombings. Last summer, attacks on security forces took place in several cities in Xinjiang; the Chinese government blamed separatist groups.

Early Monday, Chinese officials said the latest riots were started by Rebiya Kadeer, a Uighur human rights advocate who had been imprisoned in China and now lives in Washington, Xinhua reported. As with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, Chinese officials often blame Ms. Kadeer for ethnic unrest; she denies the charges.

The clashes on Sunday began when the police confronted a protest march held by Uighurs to demand a full government investigation of a brawl between Uighur and Han workers that erupted in Guangdong Province overnight on June 25 and June 26. The brawl took place in a toy factory and left 2 Uighurs dead and 118 people injured. The police later arrested a bitter ex-employee of the factory who had ignited the fight by starting a rumor that six Uighur men had raped two Han women at the work site, Xinhua reported.

There was also a rumor circulating on Sunday in Urumqi that a Han man had killed a Uighur in the city earlier in the day, said Adam Grode, an English teacher living in the neighborhood where the rioting took place.

“This is just crazy,” Mr. Grode said by telephone Sunday night. “There was a lot of tear gas in the streets, and I almost couldn’t get back to my apartment. There’s a huge police presence.”

Mr. Grode said he saw a few Han civilians being harassed by Uighurs. Rumors of Uighurs attacking Han Chinese spread quickly through parts of Urumqi, adding to the panic. A worker at the Texas Restaurant, a few hundred yards from the site of the rioting, said her manager had urged the restaurant workers to stay inside. Xinhua reported few details of the riot on Sunday night. It said that “an unknown number of people gathered Sunday afternoon” in Urumqi, “attacking passers-by and setting fire to vehicles.”

Uighurs are the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang but are a minority in Urumqi, where Han Chinese make up more than 70 percent of the population of two million or so. The Chinese government has encouraged Han migration to the city and other parts of Xinjiang, fueling resentment among the Uighurs. Urumqi is a deeply segregated city, with Han Chinese there rarely venturing into the Uighur quarter.

The Uighur neighborhood is centered in a warren of narrow alleyways, food markets and a large shopping area called the Grand Bazaar or the Erdaoqiao Market, where the rioting reached its peak on Sunday.

Mr. Grode, who lives in an apartment there, said he went outside when he first heard commotion around 6 p.m. He saw hundreds of Uighurs in the streets; that quickly swelled to more than 1,000, he said.

Police officers soon arrived. Around 7 p.m., protesters began hurling rocks and vegetables from the market at the police, Mr. Grode said. Traffic ground to a halt. An hour later, as the riot surged toward the center of the market, troops in green uniforms and full riot gear showed up, as did armored vehicles. Chinese government officials often deploy the People’s Armed Police, a paramilitary force, to quell riots.

By midnight, Mr. Grode said, some of the armored vehicles had begun to leave, but bursts of gunfire could still be heard.

So, the number of people killed is not confirmed and seems to be murky. It is possible that China is inflating the numbers of people who got killed to show the Uighurs in bad light. We need to see the numbers from independent analysis, definitely not from Chinese media which is CCP controlled.